With the ebony tiles drowned in stain twice, I grabbed a bunch of them from the driveway and did a quick partial test layout. For now, I worked around the rectangular patch where the wall heater was. Pics from this morning:

I’m really digging the way the first row of tiles (the ones column) leads to the checkered floor in the kitchen. Like it was meant to be.

As I blog this, the room is a much different place than it was a few hours ago. Sawdust everywhere. Hector came over with his saw and we framed a few 2×6 joists where that rectangular patch is, to be covered by a custom .75″ thick rectangle of plywood, flush with the floorboards. We’ll continue tomorrow night.

Also not seen in the pics above is one additional 2.25″ strip pulled out on the soffit side of the piece. We’re gonna need that extra couple inches in order to get the tiles in. Using the pulled floorboards, we’ll be splitting the gap difference (gap width minus width of five tiles) and ripping a thin pinstripe border (just over about 1.25″) on either side of the piece. It just occurred to me that it can be thought of as an elaborate version of what has gradually become the trademark extended equals sign (=) of this site. Cool. I’m starting to think about that finishing touch now. Maybe a metallic gold paint. Hmmm…

Best guess is about 1979, give or take a couple years, with the clue being the Lightning Bolt logo. I was obsessed with that thing in my formative years, incorporating variations of it into every doodle I ever did at the time. I even had the Bolt necklace. Silver.

Looking at it now, I suspect the Bolt logo was likely a shaping force in my dominant taste for sharp angles and straight geometric lines to this day. (In my freehand sketches, I’ve always found myself favoring straight lines to curves. Same with logos.) It’s also unsurprisingly trippy to see that the cover of this card boasts two ambigrams: the Bolt logo is a rotational ambigram reading the same right-side-up and upside-down; the “MOM” is a reflective ambigram reading the same forward and backward. My affection for ambigrams and symmetry has obviously always been there.

But enough about me. Happy Mother’s Day, Mommy!